Month: July 2016

China's Complex Relationship With Islam Is Reflected in Ties to Huiby JANIS MACKEY FRAYERSHAREPlayFacebookTwitterGoogle PlusEmbed How Islam Coexists With Communism in Atheist China 5:41YINCHUAN, China — This imam wears heels — and a gold-flecked headscarf.Ma Lijuan is one of the faces of state-backed Islam in officially atheist Communist China.Female imams like her are unique to China's Hui, a Muslim minority group — as are their women-only mosques.Ma hails from the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a sparsely populated province straddling an arid plateau on the Yellow River basin in north-central China."Here, [religion] is very normal for us," said Ma, 33. "Our constitution grants us the freedom of religious belief, and we are thankful to live here."Ma Lijuan, an imam at Nanguan mosque in central Yinchuan, teaches Quran classes to dozens of women who repeat…

Top court green-lights surveillance of Japan's MuslimsLegal challenge to police profiling of North Asian country's Islamic population dismissed by Supreme Court.Ian Munroe Junko Hayashi is the lawyer for plaintiffs who challenged police surveillance of Japan's Muslim community [Ian Munroe/Al Jazeera]Tokyo, Japan - Mohamed Fujita used to host religious study groups at his home that were open to all Muslims. But today he's afraid to invite strangers, in case they're police informants.Extensive surveillance has put many people of his faith on edge, he says, sowing mistrust.A native of Japan who converted to Islam more than two decades ago, Fujita was one of 17 plaintiffs in a lawsuit that challenged blanket monitoring of the country's followers of Islam. His name has been changed in this story to protect his identity, after police documents labelling…